Favors of Riddick
by shamrock920
Summary: Part II in the series, sequel to Dream Watcher. Another scene into their life if Riddick had let Jack stay with him. Mildest of cursing.


**Disclaimer: I do not own Riddick universe or anything from it.**

**Dedicated to Caz. Still. Because Caz is that cool. **

**Part 2 of this series. There was probably a few weeks gap between Dream Watcher and this. **

**Favors of Riddick**

"So this is home?" Jack asked as Riddick elbowed the door to their apartment close.

It was a small studio apartment that was the form of a favor that someone owed Riddick. It was quite pretty, as long as it was fixed up. Looking around, she walked through the apartment and grinned at him when she found him at the front door.

"And?" He asked.

"Perfect." She replied and grabbed his hand. "Let's take a grand tour of Le Penthouse de Ricardo y Jacquelina." He laughed aloud at that and followed Jack as she walked him through the apartment.

"Now, here we have a room, if cleaned up it could be a workout room I think," she walked into the next room through a back hallway and deemed it the bedroom. "Look, there's a loft up there and we could put a bed down there. Nice and spacious and then that room that joins with the kitchen could be a living room slash…recreational room."

"Never took you for an interior designer," Riddick commented as he eyed the place. Seemed worthy of the favor owed him.

"Hey, there's one in every person. I mean, you have your room preferences." She remarked and he frowned. "Yeah, I know, listing your abilities, it would sound weird if you said: 'killing, weapon selection, breaking out of triple-max slams, escaping mercs on a regular basis and oh yeah, I'm an interior designer as a side job'."

Riddick smirked at that, content to know that he had taken on a charge who at the very least had a sense of humor. He watched her skinny form jump from the floor to the edge of the loft, barely grasping on and scrambling up the side.

"Think we're gonna need a ladder or something," she said as she disappeared from his view. He was surprised by the sudden urgency of his need to know where she was exactly. "Holy mother of god…"

"What?" He had barely asked it before he leapt up onto the loft, swinging himself onto the surface.

"That." She pointed at the pile of cash that was resting in the corner of the loft next to an old hand gun. "Whatever renovation we do, I bet that's gonna cover it."

He grunted in response and looked at the cash closely. He would have to get it exchanged into cred chips. Saving that for a later time he surveyed the rest of the room from the loft and jumped down from it, landing without a noise. He moved to leave the room and stopped when he heard an offended snort. Looking up he saw Jack sitting on the edge of the loft, watching him expectantly.

"What if I hurt myself? Then you'll have to take me to the hospital then the mercs-" she was cut off when he held up his arms for her and easily lifted her up and set her down onto the floor, as if she were light the air surrounding her.

She followed him back into the main room where he turned around and eyed her closely.

"Yeah? Oh, wait, I get it. You need me to go out there and get stuff to clean this shit hole up. Yeah, I know, stay close to the apartment, if you see anything suspicious come right back and don't look suspicious either. Now, if I'm going to get stuff, I need money."

He was looking a spot above her head and she turned around to see that he was looking at a crack in the wall. Brushing past her, he curled his fist and slammed it into the wall, making Jack jump. She watched in silence as the plaster wall crumbled and revealed a small hiding space of cred chips.

"Sweet." Jack said as he tossed her a few. He then looked her up and down and she grinned. "Yeah, I'll get some clothes too."

Days passed into weeks that passed into months. They had cleaned up the apartment during the summer and then Jack grudgingly looked at high schools for the year. She had tested surprisingly well and now attended one of the top schools in that sector of the planet. She got by with good marks, quite a bit above average but not good enough to be labeled "obnoxious geek genius".

Riddick was in and out of their apartment, leaving for days at time to do a job. He hadn't been posted up recently for being dangerous and at large, so the small and underground jobs made do. He still got his thrill from the hunt and the pay was better then good.

"Evening," Jack greeted as he walked into the kitchen, peering over her shoulder to see what she was cooking on the stove. "It isn't poison you know."

"Hm." He replied and moved on to the fridge, rummaging around and stood back up with a bottle of water. While it wasn't his favourite, Jack got on his case about drinking beer, so he stuck with water.

"Good to hear, how was your day?" She asked, turning around with a pot of boiling pasta. Setting it on the counter, she entered the kitchen code for a strainer and a steel contraption appeared from the edge of the sink and turned into a strainer. "Really? Well, sounds like you had a fantastic day, so entertaining! Who knew you were such a comedian!" She replied to herself and poured the pasta through the drain, setting down the pot when she was done and looked at her apartment mate.

"My day was good, thanks for asking." She said and turned back to the sink, unhooking the strainer and pouring the pasta into a dish.

"I did have a good day and I didn't need to ask about yours because if you had a bad day, I would've known about it by now," he said, startling her at his presence that had moved across the kitchen and was right behind her, his hands gripping the counter on either side of Jack.

"But being a little more," she paused to hook the strainer back into the sink and enter the code again and watched it pull itself back into the counter. "Responsive would've been nice."

"But then I can't watch you talk to yourself." He reasoned and Jack grinned at him, ducking underneath his arm and back to the stove, turning it off as she took the heated pot of sauce from its surface.

"Ah, and we wouldn't want Riddick losing his best entertainment of the week now would we?" She teased as she poured the sauce onto the steaming pasta. She tossed it with two wooden spoons and gave it to Riddick. "Table." She said and he walked over to it and set the dish down between two set place mats.

"Interior designer and house wife. Couldn't be luckier." He commented as she sat down across from him, helping herself to food.

They sat eating in silence for a few minutes before Jack spoke again.

"Think there's food in Hell?"

Riddick raised an eyebrow at her.

"Cause what's home without food?" She asked and Riddick shrugged his shoulders. "Clearly by your response, not much." She continued to eat and Riddick put down his fork and looked at her from across the table.

"Who is in Hell that you care about anyway?" Riddick asked and Jack smirked.

"Well, I thought to myself how good this batch of pasta was and that it's a damn shame that stupid old Johns can't be having some of this and that led me to wonder if food is served in Hell." She explained and Riddick chuckled.

"If it is, well, I'm sure it's better then this, those guys would probably go on strike if this was the food they were getting served," he joked and Jack's face went dark.

"You're going to regret that." She hissed and went back to eating. Only to find that the pasta was cold. "Hey," her voice was back to normal, "want me to warm up your pasta? Mine's cold."

"Sure." He said and handed her his plate as she stood up. She was in the kitchen for a few moments before returning with steaming plates of pasta and placed his plate in front of him. He kept eating and finished it, his inner beast content at the food. Getting up, he gathered the dishes, knowing he should somehow pay back Jack for his insult. He began to talk to her from inside the kitchen, his voiced raised slightly.

"Jack, sorry about what I said about your food, it really is good, I haven't gotten…" he trailed off when he spied a suspicious bottle on the counter. Inspecting it, he growled when he realized what it was. "Jack!"

He heard her laughter as she raced from the table and into their room. Riddick was right behind her as she pulled up the rope ladder on top of the loft.

"That bottle better not be what I think it is." He growled, looking up at her smiling face.

"And what did the bottle label say?" She asked, barely holding in her laughter.

"Laxative."

"HA! I mean, well, there's a chance. Whatcha gonna do about it?" She asked and whimpered when suddenly he was on the loft with her, pinning her to the mattress.

"I mean it, Jack." He nearly snarled and finally backed off and rested against the wall, inwardly moaning at the situation he had gotten himself into. That was the last time he pissed her off.

Minutes passed and Riddick just waited for it to start. Eventually he eyed Jack who was still unable to hold back her laughter.

"I don't see what's so amusing about this." He snapped and she just burst out laughing.

"Because," she was holding her sides, trying to breath properly, "I didn't actually put any in your food! I just put the bottle out to freak you out!" she rolled over the mattress, laughing again. Riddick couldn't have stayed angry with Jack if he tried so he smirked, but shook his head.

He had stayed up with on the loft, even after she calmed down and rolled over to rest her head on his thigh. They had talked for a few hours and Jack was falling asleep, although trying hard not to.

"Riddick?" Jack asked sleepily, her clouded green eyes looking like foggy emeralds as he looked down at her. Sadly, he couldn't see the actual colour, but he knew by the shade of black and purple.

"Yeah?"

"You happy here?" She asked, snuggling closer to him.

He stayed silent for a minute while Jack fell deeper into sleep.

"With me?" she added with her eyes closed and Riddick replied that he was.

"And you?" He asked in return and Jack breathed deeply before opening her eyes to look at his silver ones.

"Course I am. Got friends, a home and most importantly, the coolest convict living with me." She said and he smirked at that. Only Jack would say something like that. "You feel like this is your home?" She asked, remembering her thoughts from that night on the skiff.

"...seems like it." He thought for a second more. "No, it is." He confirmed and felt Jack's approval and happiness. "Time for you to sleep."

"No way. Not…tired…yet…" she yawned between each word and he ignored her, moving her body onto the mattress and draping a sheet over her. "G'night, Riddick."

"Night, Jack." He replied and settled down on his corner of the loft, his back against the wall and his shiv out. Couldn't rest quite yet. After all, he had a home to protect.

End of this installment.

**Thanks to these reviewers, I missed you guys:**

**TRO – Glad you liked it! Hoped you liked the second one, too.**

**ren3017 – not as much as a story line with plot, just scenes into what would've happened. Or what I would've liked to have happened.**

**njrd – Hmm, happy to be back, that's for sure. Home indeed. **

**bebe – Haha, well, of course I continued. One more after this, though, so don't get too excited.**

**IT – Awr, well now you will have three dedicated to you. Yeah, but underneath all that I don't like Imam, he's got weird vibes. **


End file.
